U.S. Army Col. (ret.) William Braun, a research professor at the Army War College’s Strategic Institute, has discussed steps he says could help avoid conflict between the U.S. and China over territorial claims.

Braun said at a panel discussion that the Army and national strategy policymakers must try to understand China’s role as a co-power in the region and prevent U.S. allies from compromising partnerships with China, the Army said Tuesday.

He said during the event at the National Press Club in Washington that a strategy based on an old Chinese game called “Go” can help resolve what he describes as a tense U.S.-China relationship.

He noted that the U.S. and its partner nations in Southeast Asia need to find a way to negotiate in the “gray zone” — such as one found in the Go game — so that China could rise to power without involving force.

Braun also proposed that the partner nations share the cost of regional defense and lead military training and preparedness in order to reduce tension with China, the Army said.

He also urged the U.S. to conduct military-to-military engagements with China to resolve conflict.

Braun led a nine-month study on his proposed strategy at USAWC.

A Defense Department official has said DoD has begun to implement a “delayering” program at its headquarters in an effort to reduce personnel costs by 25 percent, DoD News reported Wednesday.

David Tillotson III, assistant deputy chief management officer at DoD, told DoD News reporter Lisa Ferdinando in an interview that the Pentagon aims to achieve $1.9 billion in savings through the initiative and use that savings for military readiness and training efforts.

Tillotson said the delayering initiative will run from fiscal year 2016 through FY 2020 and aims to restructure business practices and processes through attrition or reassignment of employees to other positions.

“By starting now, we have multiple years to address the issue,” he said.

Approximately 1,260 positions are slated for elimination within defense agencies and other field activities, while 309 positions are expected to be cut within the office of defense secretary, Tillotson told DoD News.

The U.S. Air Force has kicked off its search for a professional to serve as executive director and deputy chief information officer at the U.S. Transportation Command’s directorate of  command, control, communications and cyber systems.

The service branch said in a USAJobs notice posted Monday that the dual role entails oversight of the Joint Deployment and Distribution Architecture, information technology investment and enterprise infrastructure portfolios, regulatory and statutory compliance for the command’s information systems and migration into the Joint Information Environment.

The chosen candidate will also advise the Transcom commander, command staff and other command components on compliance, IT investments, enterprise architecture and process improvement and reengineering matters.

The TCJ6 executive director/deputy CIO will be based at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

Applications will be accepted throughJune 13, according to the job posting.